The Struggle
The Struggle is the second book in The Vampire Diaries ''novel series. It was first published in 1991. Summary Edit The second book picks up where the first book, ''The Awakening, left off and delves further into Damon's ongoing attempts to win Elena's affections and Stefan's struggle to survive. When Stefan we nt missing, Elena seeks out Damon and confronts him in the graveyard, knowing that it will be dangerous. Damon claims he killed Stefan the previous night. Elena has Bonnie McCullough tune into Stefan's thoughts and with the help of Matt Honeycutt, they find Stefan in a well, near death. Elena saves Stefan by giving him some of her blood. Elena also exchanges blood with Damon, making a secret deal with him she kept hidden from Stefan, knowing he would disapprove, tying herself to both brothers as Katherine did centuries ago. While waiting for Stefan one night, Elena feels as if a presence inside a storm is coming for her, and she frantically tries to escape by crossing the bridge over a river. The car, which she has borrowed from Matt, veers off the road and into the river, and she drowns. The story continues in the third book, The Fury. Plot Summary Edit The Struggle begins with Elena Gilbert standing in the cemetery shouting for Damon Salvatore to answer her. When he appears, she accuses him of being responsible for the disappearance of his brother, Stefan Salvatore. Damon urges her to forget Stefan and uses his Powers to try to persuade her to become his. When he fails, he promises Elena that she’ll be his before winter and leaves. As a parting shot, he tells her that he killed Stefan the night before. Unconvinced that Stefan is dead, Elena sets out to find him. She nearly freezes in the snowstorm that Damon has called up with his Powers, but she is rescued by Bonnie McCullough and Meredith Sulez. Bonnie uses her psychic powers to determine that Stefan is alive but in a place that is always dark and wet. Having guessed that this location is a well on the abandoned Old Francher place, Matt Honeycutt and the girls set out to rescue Stefan. They succeed, but Stefan is near death from his ordeal. While the other three set out to find medical help, Elena insists Stefan drink her blood to restore him. Elena’s blood loss causes her to be unusually tired, but she recovers soon. Stefan can’t remember who attacked him, but Elena is sure it was Damon. When Elena returns to school, the replacement European History teacher is Alaric Sal tzman, whose first act is to encourage all the students to talk about their recent terrifying experiences to get their feelings out. Stefan is suspicious of this un-teacherly behavior. Alaric invites all the students to a get-together at his house in the evening. Elena and Stefan show up, but when Elena leaves Stefan to find food, she runs into Damon, who is there in the guise of “Damon Smith,” a college student on vacation who is a friend of Sue Carson, one of Elena’s fellow students. Stefan and Damon have a confrontation that Elena interrupts when she fears that Damon’s goal is simply to make Stefan seem irrationally violent (and therefore Mr. Tanner’s murderer). In leaving the house, however, Elena finds a slip of violet paper in her purse with a line from her stolen diary. Elena warns Bonnie and Meredith that “Damon Smith” is the murderer, although she won’t tell them why she believes this. Meanwhile, Vickie Bennett has returned to school, but she behaves irrationally by undressing in the cafeteria and then accusing Elena of being evil. Stefan and Matt have disappeared to hunt for vervain, a plant that interferes with a vampire’s ability to control others’ minds. Elena spends a night at Bonnie’s house where she dreams pleasurably about dancing with Damon. She wakes abruptly to find a crow in the room and vampire marks on her neck, and she realizes that she invited Damon into Bonnie’s house during the dumb supper. When she returns home, Stefan is there with the vervain that will protect her—a few hours too lat e. She does not tell Stefan about her experience with Damon because she wants to avoid a confrontation between Stefan and Damon that she is sure Stefan, with his weaker Powers, will lose. Elena and the other girls set out to find the diary thief. Despite Elena’s initial inclination to blame Damon, they identify Caroline Forbes as the culprit. Elena follows Caroline at lunch into a deserted schoolroom where she overhears Caroline and Tyler Smallwood discuss how to use the diary against Stefan and Elena. Their plan is to wait until Elena is chosen to play “The Spirit of Fell’s Church” during the annual Founder’s Day ceremony. Caroline will also be chosen to play a role. At that time, she will walk onstage and read Elena’s diary aloud to the crowd. Caroline and Tyler believe that Elena’s statement in her diary that Stefan took her ribbon from the cemetery on the day the homeless man was attacked will suffice to prove to the police that Stefan is the murderer. Elena, Meredith, and Bonnie decide to burgle Caroline’s house to retrieve the diary before she can use it on Founder’s Day. When Caroline and her family return home, they are forced to flee without having found anything more than Caroline’s diary. Elena, however, is unable to reach the door in time and ends up on a second-floor balcony. Damon, who has been lurking on the roof, pulls her up to avoid detection. Once again, he suggests to Elena that she’d be better off with him than with Stefan. Once again, she rejects him. This time, the vervain defeats Damon’s attempt to influence her with his Powers. Damon tells Elena that if she’d give him some of her blood, he’d get the diary back. Elena jumps off the roof to show Damon that she’d rather be dead than endure his presence. Damon rescues her before she falls to her death. He then jumps with her to the ground. After telling her that he’s done a favor and will collect the next time he sees her, he shifts to crow form and flies away. Elena’s Aunt Judith prepares a mock Thanksgiving dinner a week before the real Thanksgiving to ensure nothing goes wrong. Elena invites Matt and Bonnie as her guests. Aunt Judith’s fiancé, Robert Maxwell, also appears and brings “Damon Smith” as his guest. When Elena’s little sister Margaret Gilbert appears with her new white kitten, Elena seizes the kitten and sticks it into Damon’s face, knowing that animals often sense a vampire’s nature and become hostile. The kitten hisses and spits before fleeing the room, leaving everyone to wonder why Elena is thrusting cats into guests’ faces. After dinner, Damon leaves, but Elena knows that he has now gained an invitation to her house and can return whenever he pleases. She is about to ask Stefan for help despite her fear that he will confront Damon and lose the fight when she realizes that her house was actually built in two parts: a first part before the Civil War and a second part afterwards. Although Damon was invited into one part, her bedroom is in the other. Damon shows up as Elena expected, but when he is unable to enter her room, he threatens to enter Margaret’s room instead. Elena leaves her room to protect her little sister. Elena wakes up the next morning in her bedroom. She is surprised that Damon has not turned her into a vampire, but she is weak and dizzy from blood loss. When she sees Stefan later, she confesses to him that Caroline plans to use her diary against Stefan. Stefan, who’s been wondering why Elena has been so worried, is relieved that she’s not rejecting him because of his vampire nature. He refuses to leave town and says that he and Elena will face the situation together. He then drinks her blood again. Afterwards, he proposes to Elena and offers her Katherine’s ring. She accepts but says that the engagement must be kept secret because she is still seventeen and Aunt Judith thinks that Stefan has been a bad influence on Elena. Elena has now lost quite a bit of blood and, on several occasions, drunk the blood of Stefan or Damon in exchange. As a result, she is somewhat dazed during the Founder’s Day ceremony. The latest plan is that Elena’s friends will steal the diary back from Caroline because she will not be able to carry it in her nineteenth-century costume, but Caroline foils them by obtaining her reticule early and bringing the diary with her. When Caroline pulls out the diary to read onstage, though, she finds she broug ht her own diary and not Elena’s. Elena spots Damon in the audience and realizes that he has saved her and Stefan by substituting the diaries. She goes to ask him his motive and refuses to believe him when he says “for my own purposes.” Aunt Judith arrives and encourages Elena and Damon to spend more time together. Believing that Damon is influencing Aunt Judith, Elena becomes angry. She tells Damon she’s marrying Stefan and shows him Katherine’s ring on her finger, at which point he becomes angry and leaves. Aunt Judith forbids Elena to marry Stefan, and Elena takes Matt’s car to the boarding house to find Stefan. She returns when she cannot find him, but she feels the presence of evil in the brewing storm, and she spots a large white owl chasing her. She screams at Damon to leave her alone, but she drives off Wickery Bridge while speeding to safety. She then drowns. Meanwhile, Stefan is confronting Tyler, Caroline, and several of Tyler’s bulky friends in a Quonset hut. When Bonnie and Meredith find him, Bonnie abruptly has a psychic realization that Elena is drowning. She, Meredith, and Stefan race to save her but are too late. Stefan sends Bonnie and Meredith to find the police and then sets out to commit suicide. First, he returns to the Quonset hut and drains all the boys to the point of unconsciousness. Stefan then uses his new Powers to turn into a falcon and find Damon. Stating that Damon made a mistake in not killing him and Elena together, Stefan attacks. The fight is interrupted, however, when Elena wakes up in a state of great confusion and arrives to save the brother she’s now sure she loves: Damon.